Ambassador to the Stars
by Idon'tknow95
Summary: Thomas Barrow has been living in darkness for a long time. But after an encounter with a strange man in the woods, his entire life gets turned upside down, and not in a good way. Will this peculiar stranger be the one to save Thomas from the shards of his life, and from himself?


It was a damp and dreary evening out on the expansive moors surrounding the looming structure of Downton Abbey, and Thomas Barrow was out trudging in it.

His plan, though simple, he had to admit to himself, had been a foolish one. In an attempt to degrade the gangly new footman, Alfred, (and more importantly, though inadvertently, one Ms. O'Brien) he had slipped Alfred's serving coat out of the livery room and had soaked it in the mud here, yesterday, and left it to dry and crust. Yesterday had been a bright and sunny day, however, and today was quite the opposite. Trudging among the swampy and newly wet ferns, Thomas cursed. Not only was he getting his own attire incredibly muddied, but he felt he would never find Alfred's set either, under the new layer of mud. Trying not to panic, and trying also to silent that nagging voice in his head reminding him how childish his prank had been in the first place, he began digging around in the general vicinity of where he (hoped) he had left the jacket yesterday.

All at once, a twig nearby cracked ominously, and Thomas jerked up, listening anxiously. Another crack sounded loudly, closer by. Thomas quickly ducked behind a tree, listening as the sounds approached, and peeped around the tree trunk. There, he saw a man casually striding through the trees as if down a comfortable avenue, looking up at the dwelling clouds and hands stuck in his skinny pockets. He even began whistling as he approached the bog Thomas had just been ankle-deep in. He stopped short of the swampy area, and, still whistling, cocked his head, then bent down and pulled something out of the mud. Thomas' eyes widened. The man had pulled out Alfred's serving jacket, which was properly caked with dark brown mud. He was looking at it quizzically. Then he held it up amusedly to himself, as if trying it on for size. Thomas couldn't stay silent any longer, and stepped out from around the tree.

"I wouldn't, love, not your style, really." Thomas said easily, with a confident and startling air. The man looked up, and Thomas caught his first good look at the strange planes of the man's face, his sharp, piercing cool eyes, his pale raised eyebrows and floppy hair. His skin was nearly as pale as Thomas' own in the dimming light. The man didn't seem surprised to see Thomas; he even regarded Thomas as if he had known he had been there the whole time.

"It isn't, is it?" the man said, holding the jacket to the side of him, allowing Thomas a glance at the man's own attire- a smart bowtie and somewhat ratty tweed jacket adorned in leather elbow pads which hid a pair of thin suspenders. "Yet not quite yours either I'm afraid. I don't believe you're quite rugged enough for this look." The man tutted enigmatically.

Thomas sized up the man, eyes grazing over his fine yet not strikingly noble features, limber working fingers and skinny stature. Handsome, yet Thomas was puzzled. The man spoke with a winningly superior air, and his attitude suggested confidence and affluence. Yet his appearance said otherwise. Thomas stepped closer to the bog. "May I have the pleasure of knowing whose acquaintance I have encountered?" he questioned smoothly. The man was critically picking pieces of mud off of the suit, and looking at the ruined fabric. Thomas felt a twinge of panic looking at the jacket, but he quickly slammed it down.

"Oh, I'm the Doctor." the man said airily, looking up from his task. "I'd shake your hand but I'm not too fond of the idea of stepping in that mud, and I'm honestly not sure which year this is. Is a handshake acceptable?"

Thomas' brow furrowed in confusion at these words, "It's 1921. You're in England." He peered at the man more closely; maybe he was an escaped convict or mental patient? He certainly didn't look like one. What kind of name was "the Doctor" anyway?

"England!" the Doctor said, with a strange laugh, "It's always England! Tell me, are we anywhere near London? I'd be due. Is that London I see over those trees?" He pointed over the forest tops with the free hand that was not holding the ruined garment.

Thomas followed his finger with his eyes, "No, sir, that would be Downton, Downton Abbey, the home of my employer, Lord Grantham, who is lord of these lands." He felt compelled to tell the man this.

"_Lord_! Lords and ladies!" the peculiar Doctor laughed again, and seemed almost tickled by this announcement, "Then that makes you the butler then, a servant of theirs?"

Thomas felt ruffled, "I'm a valet, I'll have you know." he lied.

"A very good one, it seems," the Doctor said, holding up the stained jacket, "doing a little washing up?"

Annoyed, Thomas stepped across the bog with an unpleasant _squelch_ of mud, grabbing hold of the jacket. "Leave off." he hissed.

The Doctor smiled again and said "Oh, don't get your drawers in a knot." With a flourish he pulled a strange mechanical object from his pocket, and after pushing a socket on it, pointed it at the jacket. After a few seconds of a green light and persistent buzzing noise, he put the device back in his pocket and showed Thomas the garment. "What do you think?"

Thomas stood astounded. The jacket looked brand new, not a stain on it, freshly pressed, as if it had not just spent an entire rainy night out in the mud. "I never thought that dry cleaning setting would come in handy," the Doctor remarked thoughtfully, "but I guess there's a first for everything." Thomas took the jacket from the Doctor's hands and stared at it, still speechless, a rare state for him. The Doctor neared him. "What's your name?" he asked.

"Thomas. Thomas Barrow." Thomas croaked out.

"Well, Thomas, have you ever seen an alien before?" Thomas looked up at the man, his expression an unusual mangle of confusion, and shook his head numbly.

"It's like I said." the Doctor said, and he suddenly plucked the jacket out of Thomas' hands and leapt, with a strange gangly grace, across the bog and to the other side, and, turning, he looked at Thomas, "There's a first time for everything." He began striding away quickly toward the looming towers of Downton Abbey, and spoke casually over his shoulder to the paralyzed servant, "We'd better get up to the house before this coat gets wet again."

Thomas blinked quickly as droplets of rain began to fall in his eyelashes, and the extraordinary man disappeared amongst the trees. He came to life suddenly, and splashed sloppily through the bog, dirtying his pants even farther, and took off running after the stranger, still unable to comprehend what had happened.

As the shadowy towers of Downton Abbey came into view, the rain began to fall in earnest, the sky opening up its great maw and darkness descending quickly. The Doctor was scrambling ahead, Alfred's dinner jacket pressed to his chest, and Thomas was running behind, slamming through puddles and soaked to the skin. The Doctor loped quickly toward the large front door of the house, but Thomas yelled frantically to him over the rain:

"No! Not there! We can't go through there!"

The Doctor stopped short and turned to look at Thomas, rain running in rivulets down his flop of hair and pale face.

"Servants' entrance! This way!" Thomas called over the storm, gesturing with his scarred hand, whose glove was plastered stickily to his fingers. The two men dashed across the manicured lawn and around the grand house, as lightning crashed overhead, illuminating them for moments before descending into muddled darkness again, as the thunder rumbled ominously.

Thomas pulled the servants' door open and flung himself through hurriedly, and the Doctor crammed in behind him and shut the door. The two stood panting in the doorway, raining onto the mat from their dripping hair and clothes. Thomas' suit, which had been in perfect, ready form before his outing, was now smattered with mud and soaked through with rain. The Doctor himself looked rather liked a half-drowned cat, his lopsided hair was plastered uncannily to his forehead and his shirt to his torso in the most unnerving way, showing his white chest underneath.

"Well!" the Doctor said cheerily, shaking his head like a dog (and subsequently dousing the still panting Thomas) "that's the wettest I've been since Atlantis!"

Thomas was about to respond to this outrageous declaration when an exclamation from down the hallway pulled his attention away from the Doctor.

"What in God's name!" cried Mrs. Hughes, as she advanced down the hallway and stood in front of the two men, "Thomas! Where have you been? We've been scouring the house looking for you! Don't tell me you've been out in his ghastly rain-"

She was cut off abruptly by a sudden bark from the dining hall which was loud and sharp:

"Mr. Barrow! If you would be so kind as to join us in the kitchen, _now_!"

Thomas flinched under Mr. Carson's booming orders, and stepped promptly around Mrs. Hughes and went down the hallway, his shoes making awful wet squish sounds all the way. As he turned into the room, he put his face into a molded expression of stoic passivity, wiping it of as much emotion as possible even as his fingers trembled a little (from the cold?). Inside, Mr. Carson was standing at the head of the table, his face like stone. Anna was sitting quietly in the corner, eyeing Thomas carefully as he entered, and Jimmy (something in Thomas' chest clenched painfully) was sitting at the table, one elbow resting upon it leisurely, with a leering, small smirk playing on his lips.

"_Mister Barrow_," Carson started out, his voice a net of carefully controlled anger and exasperation, "do you not recall that we have a dinner which needs to be served in less than half an hour? Do you not recall my having told you that you would be serving in James' place today due to his illness? _Do you not recall_," his voice was gaining in severity and volume, and Thomas found it more difficult to continue to look the angered man in the eyes, "that you are already on thin, thin ice in the generous position you hold due to your earlier _actions_ of distasteful nature, and that nothing less than complete effort and perfection is expected of you at this juncture?"

Thomas stared blankly at Mr. Carson for a moment, and Carson's eyes wandered finally down to Thomas' suit.

"What on Earth have you been _doing_, Barrow?! You're in the dining room in half an hour, and your suit is ruined!"

Thomas swallowed, thinking fast, and started, mouth dry, "Mr. Carson, I can explain-"

"He was out," a voice from the door said clearly, "looking for me."

In the doorway stood the stranger from the woods, the Doctor, his hands clasped behind him oddly, with a placid look on his face, still relatively soaking. Near him Mrs. Hughes lingered, eyeing him distrustfully.

"Who the devil are you?" Mr. Carson spluttered.

"He's-" Thomas tried to speak.

"I'm the Doctor," the stranger said, "And I've been informed it's all right to shake." He extended one hand out to Mr. Carson, the other still carefully behind his back.

"The doctor!" Carson exclaimed, "Finally! We called Dr. Clarkson hours ago about Jimmy's fever and they said he was busy and would send someone over, we figured they had been turned away by the rain. Well, good to meet you, sir, I'm Mr. Carson," he shook the Doctor's proffered hand rigidly, "I'm in charge of things around here, I think you'll find. Now-"

Once again another sudden interruption entered the room, effectively cutting off Mr. Carson's words. This time it came in the form of a lanky young man who stamped in announcing loudly, "My dinner jacket is missing! Thomas has nicked it!"

"Alfred!" Carson rumbled furiously, "Don't you come barging in here and-"

"I know it was him, Mr. Carson, I swear it! It's been missing since yesterday! He means to ruin it!" Alfred pointed a finger accusingly at Thomas.

Thomas suddenly felt a piece of fabric being stuck between his fingers, and the Doctor said loudly, "Oh, you mean this?"

Thomas realized he was holding the dinner jacket, which the Doctor had just skillfully slid from behind his back and into Thomas' hand. Thomas stared at the jacket, and couldn't believe his eyes again. The jacket was still perfectly dry and perfectly laundered despite their dash through the rain. The whole room was silent with surprise. Thomas felt the need to speak.

"I got some of the suits laundered for you, Mr. Carson." he said speedily, "I didn't want us to be... unpresentable."

Alfred stood dumbfounded, staring at his unmaimed jacket, and Carson shook his head.

"Alfred, you need to learn not to make such hasty accusations. Put on your jacket and start preparing for dinner service."

"No way!" Alfred cried, backing away slightly, "He's done something to it! I swear it!"

"Alfred! Stop being childish and get your jacket on!" Carson's voice boomed with finality. Alfred glared at Thomas, who continued to keep his face as clean of emotion as possible. Jimmy had watched the exchange from the end of the table with hard eyes. With one last sharp glance at Thomas, Alfred snagged the jacket out of his fingers and stalked out of the room.

"As for you, Barrow," Carson turned back to the two damp men, "Don't think this gets you off the hook. Now, for God's sake, go get changed, man, and show the good doctor to some drier clothes, if you please!"

Thomas made a small bow, and gestured for the Doctor to follow him through the hallway. As he stepped out of the room, he caught Jimmy's eye again, and the man was staring at him with a scorching dislike. Thomas quickly looked away.

In the hallway, to Thomas' great chagrin, they promptly encountered Ms. O'Brien's lurking figure, and he was sure she had listened to the entire scene in the dining hall. Smiling a disconcerting grin at the two dirtied men, she disappeared down the hall into the rattling kitchen. Thomas showed the Doctor to the livery room.

"Here, dry off." Thomas tossed the Doctor a clean rag as he began sorting through the suits and trying to find another clean set which would fit him.

"You seem awfully popular," the Doctor commented as he obediently began wiping his face with the rag.

Thomas made an irritated noise in response.

"Of course, I suppose that does come as a consequence as from trying to destroy other people's uniforms, hm?"

Thomas turned to the Doctor again, holding up a suit coat, glaring at him annoyedly. The Doctor smiled.

"Honestly, you'll never fit in that."

Thomas looked down at the jacket he was holding, which was a dingy gray one that looked as if it had been made for a _very_ portly man.

The Doctor stood and neared Thomas, drawing his unusual mechanical object from the interior of his soaked coat. John's heart beat quicker as the man neared, and he eyed the object nervously.

"It won't hurt a bit." the Doctor said, and suddenly the green light and buzzing noise was pointed near Thomas's chest. Thomas felt a soothing warmness all over his body, and then the noise ceased. He looked down, and his suit was returned to absolute perfection as if by magic. The Doctor's odd outfit was also perfect and mud-free, down to the cockeyed bowtie.

Thomas found his voice, and he looked into the Doctor's face. "You're not some country doctor."

The Doctor smiled, "And apparently you're no valet." Suddenly he grasped Thomas' gloved hand, his fingers rubbing on the rough scar there. "So what are you?"

Before Thomas had even the slightest chance to respond, the bells in the hall began to ring furiously, and Mrs. Patmore shouted loudly from the kitchen. Thomas suddenly came to himself.

"I have to go." he said, returning his gaze to the Doctor's wide eyes and jerking his hand out of the strong grasp. He looked around hurriedly, "Just stay here, I'll be done in a couple of hours-"

"Are you kidding?" the Doctor said, a coy smile on his lips, and he flipped his mechanical object artfully between his fingers before stowing it in his jacket again, "I have a patient, remember?"

The Doctor turned to leave the room, and Thomas scrambled to say, "Just don't wander off, all right?"

"Sure, sure." the enigmatic man responded, stepping out into the hallway and heading toward the dining hall.

Thomas exasperatedly contemplated for a moment the fact that he had just let a man of questionable intent, origin, and sanity free to roam the house, before being recalled to his duties by another bellowing call from Mrs. Patmore.

Several minutes later Thomas emerged from the kitchens, his arms weighted down by heavy platters, and found Jimmy standing in the hallway, near the stairs, staring blankly. As Thomas passed him, Jimmy's hand shot out and his fingers clenched Thomas' arm threateningly. Thomas looked at the man, and saw a dark glittering in the other's eyes.

"I don't know what you're playing at, _Barrow_." Jimmy's voice sounded unnatural, like a hiss, "Bringing that nutter here. But you better leave off."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Thomas started, but then a sharp shout from Carson from overhead made him advance up the stairs, releasing the hold on his bicep and leaving Jimmy glaring angrily at his back.

As he reached the top of the stairs and set his platters down carefully, Carson came up to him hurriedly, and asked, "Where on earth is Alfred?"

"He's still getting the soufflés, sir," Thomas responded.

"Damn the soufflés, Barrow, run quick to the silver, and set a whole new place at the table, we're having a ruddy _ambassador_ for dinner!"

"How are we serving him?" Thomas couldn't resist hissing cheekily, and he thought Carson's bright pink face might just implode.

"Go set a place, now!" Carson turned to go, and then turned back, staring in shock at Thomas. "Barrow, your _suit_!"

Thomas looked down at himself, remembering his miraculous cleanliness, and, with an incoherent "um" he did as he was told, running to get another set of silver, and thinking quickly as he did so. He wondered what had become of the mysterious Doctor, and what he had said to Jimmy.

Finally the servants reconvened in the dining halls, as Carson grilled them on a few last instructions and Jimmy sat darkly in a corner. Alfred glared at Thomas as well, and looked uncomfortable in his unblemished jacket. Carson didn't comment again on the state of Thomas' own, and indeed, Thomas himself was trying not to think too hard on the memory of the unusual Doctor, and the impossibility of his entire encounter with the man. It made his head hurt. As he, Carson, and Alfred mounted the stairs and took their trays as they prepared to serve, he felt relief that the man had gone, with his confusing assumptions and deductions as well.

This thought was promptly shattered as Thomas stepped into the crowded dining hall and beheld the same jaunty face he had just dismissed, sitting at the center of the table, disarrayed hair and cocky bowtie and all. He was sitting just between Lady Mary and Lord Grantham, smiling innocuously in a way which did not coincide with his undistinguished dress.

"So you believe such a League of Nations will not succeed, Ambassador?" Lord Grantham was asking interestedly.

"Oh no, my lord, such a league will succeed, eventually," the Doctor replied articulately, flapping out his hand cloth and tucking it into the front of his shirt, "But this one, without the help of the United States, will make no change."

"So you believe the Americans will not join something they have worked so hard to form?" Matthew commented from round the table.

"I believe," the Doctor started, then looked up and noticed Thomas, who was standing, mouth wide, staring at him, while Carson and Alfred began serving quickly. The Doctor's face broke into a smile. "I think I'd like one of those soufflés, if you please."

Lord Grantham looked up at Thomas expectantly, and Thomas came to himself long enough to bow curtly and come around the table. As he leaned over the Doctor's shoulder, holding the platter at perfect height so the man could retrieve a soufflé, he whispered in the man's ear, "_What are you doing_?"

The Doctor responded, out loud, to the entirety of the table, "If I knew, now, it wouldn't be any fun, would it?" He turned to Thomas with a bewildering smile, and Lord Grantham buzzed behind him, acknowledging the uncertainty of the political future.

"Ambassador Smith," the Dowager Countess spoke from across the table, "Might I inquire of the… er- fashion taken in the world of politics nowadays? If I recall in my time even such a dinner as this required some kind of white tie."

The Doctor seemed unfazed by her scalding words, and responded, "I've never seen such a place for such poshness, really." He turned and spoke to Mary, "I always wear clothes that I'm comfortable in, that make me happy, don't you?"

Mary fluttered a moment before answering, "Why, what a peculiar sentiment. You sound much like my sister Sybil. How I wish you could have met her, she held with just that sort of argument."

"Oh good, I love a good argument." the Doctor said cheerily.

"My wife, the Lady Sybil, is dead, sir." Mr. Branson spoke from the corner of the table, where he had been sitting quietly, "But I daresay she would have enjoyed meeting you."

"Dead." the Doctor said after a pause, and Thomas looked up from serving Lady Edith to look at his face. For his voice had been tight, and his eyes were dark. "She would be, wouldn't she. Dead before her time, I suppose." He set down his fork. "You know that's one thing I've seen, that's one thing I've realized no matter where I go, there's always someone, some place that has been darkened by death. It's the most universal thing there is, and while we cause much of it ourselves in petty conflicts and wars we know nothing of it, for it is as foreign to us as any alien thing which we do not encounter nearly as often as we do that thief of our souls."

The room was silent, the three servants having frozen where they stood, and Thomas looked and looked at that man at the center of the table. Surely, it was the same man he had encountered whistling in the forest, the same one he had run with through the rain, but from within the man something was radiating, something powerful and incomprehensible and unmistakably fearful.

And then the man blinked and picked up his fork again, and Thomas straightened up with his platter, and the man tucked back in his napkin under his chin and said, "This soufflé looks delicious. You know, I've been craving a soufflé for quite some time, did you know they require only the freshest milk?"

Thomas began serving Mr. Branson, and Lady Edith replied to the Doctor, "Why yes, they are lovely soufflés. How is it you know so much about their preparation?"

"Oh, I knew a friend who adored creating soufflés. Her specialty."

"Well I'm sure Mrs. Patmore's will not disappoint," Lady Marry smiled winningly, and the table settled in to take its first bites when a sudden crash broke the tranquility of the room.

"_Alfred_!" Mr. Carson cried, as the gangly boy's serving tray bounced on the ground and his face began to contort furiously and shout.

The men at the table stood abruptly, Thomas dashed around the table to the shouting boy. The Doctor stood also to help, but Lord Grantham held him by the arm.

"What is the matter with him?" cried Lady Grantham breathlessly.

"Let me see," the Doctor said, brushing off Lord Grantham easily and stepping up to Alfred.

"_There's...something...on...my... back_." Alfred hissed.

The Doctor's eyes were round with alarm at these words, and his hand quickly shot under Alfred's coat, tearing it off him partially as he reached toward the man's back. Alfred yelped, and then the Doctor's hand withdrew, and he was holding a large brown frog in his long fingers.

The entire room collectively let out a sigh as the little amphibian came into view, and Carson made a strangled noise of frustration.

Alfred stared at the unfortunate creature that had just been pulled out his jacket, and then his eyes fell on Thomas, who was standing only feet away. Thomas knew, with a dreadful thudding realization, the words which would come from the boy's mouth next, but albeit they hit him like stones as they did.

"It was him!" Alfred pointed a finger condemningly in Thomas' face, "He did it! He put it there on purpose! He's been trying to get back at me ever since all that rubbish with Jimmy, and since he got demoted! You saw, Mr. Carson!" Alfred turned to Carson, whose expression was grim with anger and embarrassment, "You saw, he got this jacket laundered himself, he was the one that gave it to me! He knew this would happen!"

"That's enough, Alfred!" Lord Grantham said, his voice hard, and Alfred went silent. Lord Grantham turned to Carson. "Mr. Carson, is this true?"

"I'm afraid it is, my Lord."

"Now hang on just a moment-" the Doctor began, but he was abruptly cut off.

"_Mr. Barrow_." Lord Grantham's voice was harder than ever, and sliced through the Doctor's words easily, "I believed my generosity in keeping you on, as _butler_, no less, was to be well rewarded by your obedience and service to this house. However I have found that you have not changed your selfish, heinous and positively _unseemly_ behavior. You have served us well in the past and during the war, and I have been prepared to let it slide, but no longer. Please leave us; I will decide what to do with you later."

Lord Grantham took his seat firmly, finally turning away from Thomas, whose face felt numb with shock and fingers were trembling with terror.

"Carson, get someone to clean up this mess." Lord Grantham's voice rang with finality.

Carson finally moved from his frozen stature he had maintained through the entire speech, and gestured for Alfred to begin cleaning up the dropped tray. Then he gave Thomas a blinding glare which clearly said _follow me_, and he turned and malevolently exited the hall. Thomas looked around him at the pale and shocked faces of those at the table which were still turned to his, and opened his mouth to say something to the back of Lord Grantham's chair, when he caught sight of Lady Mary's burning gaze, and he lowered his eyes and stepped around Alfred's mess toward the door. He felt an arm grasp his lightly and heard the Doctor murmur, "Thomas-" but he pushed the man off, and followed Carson out of the room.

As the door to the dining room shut behind him with a ringing irrevocability, Carson turned to him, and Thomas set his tray down carefully and braced himself for what was to come. Carson's face had far surpassed its normal puce or even pink, it was a dark maroon red, with a dangerous edge Thomas had never seen.

"_How dare you_?" Carson said, and his voice rang with deadly anger, while not loud, it seemed to pierce the air and Thomas' skin as acutely as Lord Grantham's angered storm, "_How dare you insult us? How dare you create such a stir?_ On a dinner of this great importance, you bring your own grudge into this? You premeditate humiliation such as this? I never liked you, Barrow, I always knew you were a cheat, and a lowlife, but after your efforts in the war, and so many years of service, I figured you could not be the actual _scum_," Carson actually spat, and Thomas flinched_,_ "of this godforsaken the events of this evening and these past months_ it appears I was wrong_."

Thomas knew, with a shuddering sureness, that everyone, both upstairs and downstairs, could hear Carson's condemning words, and he himself heard them clearer than he ever had. He felt an unusual, cracking buzz behind his eyes and in his head and a tightness in his throat, a feeling which overcame him so suddenly he had little time to process before Carson resumed, speaking through his teeth.

"If you believe you'll be released with references, I believe you're sorely mistaken. Now, I have a dinner to try to salvage. _Leave my sight._"

Thomas almost couldn't see as he passed by Carson and began stumbling down the stairs, and below he encountered a large arrangement of the staff, their eyes on his all hard edges and judgment. He could barely distinguish them as he pushed through them and down the hall, but he saw Daisy's bewildered and frightened expression, Anna's sadness and regret, and lastly, Jimmy's malicious smirk which made that knot in Thomas' chest, which had already been clenching painfully, pull taut, and Thomas broke free of them and pushed down the hall, turning the corner towards his bedroom until he ran into the last unpleasant face.

"Well, well, well Thomas Barrow." O'Brien stood in his way, in the center of the hall, smiling a blood-chilling vampire grin, "All this time I've been trying to discover more ways to tear you down, to ruin you and your pathetic excuse for a life, but look," her voice was one of piercing calm deceit, she put her face uncomfortably close to Thomas' own, and Thomas shuddered with unrepressed wracking tears, which he just now became aware were falling. "you do it all yourself. Because you're a loser, Thomas Barrow, and that's all you'll ever be in this life or any other, and I'll be glad to see you covered in mud under my boots more often."

Thomas suddenly couldn't handle it any longer, and shoved her brutally aside, and she gasped as he pushed her into the stone wall and he fled down the hall, crying pitifully for himself as he found the door to his room and forced himself inside, shutting the door behind him and slamming his face into the wood, dampening it with his tears.

How long he stood there, he did not know. Surely only seconds passed, but it could also have been an eternity. In this disaster which was the remaining shards of his life, it did not matter whether it was an hour, or a month, or a year. He felt like a fool- he had been walking a fine wire all his life, a line between _this_ and _that. _He had always fooled himself into believing that worst could never truly happen, that he could never really be defeated, be reduced to nothing by the universe. When he felt he was getting close to that edge, kneeling on the precipice, he usually fled, or did something to prove to himself he was not one of those fools who got screwed over by fate. Once, he got himself shot in the hand, another he attempted to ruin Alfred's suit. In these moments of indecision, these moments on that precipice, he was at his darkest, basest, rawest, and he realized now, his most foolish. He did not feel like a man, in that moment, he felt warped, cheated, by time, and himself, and his own selfish and idiotic decisions. He pounded the door in distraught angry despair, and finally weakened himself to the point where he fell limp against it again, sliding to the floor, his thoughts flickering on and off like a broken wire, that fierce buzzing noise behind his eyes pressing in on him, and that clenched fist in his chest unrelenting.

Some time later, Thomas became aware of a persistent noise on the edge of his consciousness, which intruded on his short-circuit thoughts and called upon him a sense of duty and urgency. He realized, slowly, it was a bell from the dining hall, ringing insistently. He opened his heavy door a crack, and listened. The noise continued, and there was no indication of anyone coming to answer it. Wiping his face and eyes messily, Thomas stood unsteadily, and stepped out into the hallway, the sound of his shoes making eerie echoes off the bare walls. He advanced quietly down the hall and stepped into the dining room. There, the wall of bells stood still, all except for one small bell, which Thomas had never seen ring- had indeed never realized existed until that moment.

_Roof_.

Thomas blinked at the label below the bell and looked around the silent hall, at the empty chairs. He caught a glace of his own pallid face on the side of a pewter flask, and it was whiter than usual, almost ghostly, with only a hint of puffiness around his eyes to show for his time behind the door.

The tiny bell rang again, piercing the quiet. Thomas turned back to it. It felt strangely like the bell was calling for him and him alone. No one else appeared to be responding to the call. Where was everyone?

Thomas shook himself, and looked down at his suit, which was dirtied by his time on the floor. He straightened it, brushed off his front, wiped his eyes again, and headed for the stairs.

He had never taken the utility stairs which reached up the many floors of Downton Abbey and up all the way to the rooftop of the manor. At the top of the stairs was an unadorned wooden door, locked with a latch from the inside, and Thomas undid it warily before pushing the door open and stepping out into the chilly, dark night.

The towers of the Abbey reached up like fingers toward the expansive night sky, and the darkness was hardly disturbed from the bare traces of light emitted from the windows and rooms below him. The stars, from here, seemed somehow impossibly farther away to Thomas than they did on the ground.

As he shut the door behind him, he became aware of a buzzing noise, but this one, though familiar, did not come from that place behind Thomas' eyes. Thomas spun around, and there, on the edge of the roof, sitting on the ornate stone parapet, was the Doctor, the remarkable Doctor. The buzzing noise was emitting from his little mechanical device, which he was absently pointing at a small button near the door which read, in small print "call", while he himself looked away, across the horizon.

Thomas found his voice, and when he spoke it came out as a disconcerting croak, "You rang, sir?"

The Doctor's head snapped around, and he saw Thomas finally. He smiled, and Thomas felt confusion creeping upon him.

"Just the man I wanted to see." the Doctor said, flopping down ungracefully from the parapet.

"Is there anything you require, _Ambassador_?" Thomas asked, his voice keen with mistrust.

"Oh come on," the Doctor said, still smiling oddly, "You didn't buy all that ambassador schmuck, did you?" he reached into his coat pocket and waved a small blank piece of paper in Thomas' face, "Psychic paper. It's sort of magical. It convinced them I was somebody important rather than some random stranger wandering about their house examining their drapery." Thomas turned away and leaned against the parapet as the Doctor said this, his head teeming. "You can tell a lot about people from their drapery, you know." the Doctor finished.

The two stood in silence for a moment, until the Doctor stowed his paper and joined Thomas in leaning on the edge of the roof.

"You don't believe me." the Doctor said, after the brief quiet. "Of course, I realize I have lied before, about you know, being an _actual_ doctor but I _am_ one of those, and I did lie about being an ambassador, _but_-" the Doctor stopped as Thomas turned to him.

"I've lived too long in this world, Doctor," Thomas said gruffly, "To believe in any _sort of_ magic." His mind was a cloud of darkness; he repressed the memory of the buzzing mechanical object, of the clean jackets, of any light he had seen in the brief window of today.

"Oh, Thomas, Thomas Barrow." the Doctor said, and his voice was soft, "You're beautiful."

Thomas blinked and let out a frightened and shocked half laugh, half cough.

"I mean it." the Doctor said, "You're an example. You're an example of the universe turning on someone, and it hurting him, changing him so deeply he is convinced of its darkness, and he lives in it, as he believes it is the only side left to hang on to. You've been so mangled, by hatred and life and people and_ time_." the Doctor's eyes seemed enormous and so, so close to Thomas, as they reflected the glittering light of the stars above, and Thomas swore this man, this man had to be impossible. "What's so beautiful about someone like that then, eh?" the Doctor continued, and that little knowing smile returned, "Because it just takes showing them a little bit of light, and oh-" his smile was brighter than his eyes, "_how beautiful they are_."

Thomas stared at the impossible planes of the Doctor's face, and at those starry eyes, and processed the words roughly, his own eyes feeling once again watery. Before he realized it, the Doctor had taken his wrist, that of his injured hand, whose glove was dirty and wrinkled. In one careful pull, the Doctor slid the glove off, and there it was. The ugly, scarred skin of the bullet wound, which had pierced all the way through the hand and distorted the skin around it.

The two of them stared at it, and Thomas looked at the slim fingers around his own. The Doctor looked at the dirty glove between his fingers, and then, after looking Thomas in the eyes, dropped it over the edge of the building in one fluid motion. Thomas turned to look at it as it fell and disappeared into the darkness below.

"Why did you do that?" Thomas asked.

The Doctor looked back at him. "It's time for you to stop being a coward, Thomas Barrow, and owning up to your own mistakes, and faults. I know better than anyone it's harder than it seems," his eyes were blazing as he said this, and to Thomas, the night air seemed to chill momentarily, "but if we do not learn to forgive ourselves first, how can we be expected to forgive the universe?"

Thomas thought on this, thought about his hand and that night when he had decided to spark that lighter. He stepped away from the Doctor marginally and leaned against the wall again.

"It sounds as if you are well acquainted with the universe." he said, his tone slightly coy.

"You could say she and I are on a first name basis." the Doctor said, this time his eyes shining with mirth.

"When you said, earlier, about meeting an alien...?" Thomas let the fragment lie there, stretched between them.

"I'll bet I'm the best looking alien you've ever met," the Doctor said, and Thomas felt a strange pull in his stomach, which he registered as part shock, part utter amazement. "I'd say I look good for almost 1200, don't you?"

"You can't be serious." Thomas said, an eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Serious as a bullet wound." the Doctor said emphatically, then winced and said, "Ooh, sorry about that one." Then he smiled, and it was such an infectious bright one that Thomas couldn't help it- his face stretched into one as well, a genuine, completely unfabricated smile that had not graced his face in many months, or perhaps years.

"You know what, Thomas Barrow." the Doctor said, that blinding smile still playing across his face, "I'll make you believe in magic yet."

He held out his hand, his long, unnerving fingers pointed straight at Thomas, and waggling. Thomas looked at them, and then up at the Doctor.

"Come along, Barrow." the Doctor grinned, "How long are you going to stand on the edge of the rooftop?"

And Thomas reached, reached, reached, and then his fingers found the Doctor's and suddenly he was being pulled, the Doctor was running, in long hasty strides, across the stones of the roof, dragging Thomas behind him. They ran under the stars as they had in the rain, and the cold air burned Thomas' lungs in the most exhilaratingly _alive_ way. Finally they stopped short on the other side of the rooftop, and the Doctor was watching Thomas expectantly. Thomas looked at what they had stopped in front of.

"What is it?" Thomas asked breathlessly.

"It's a nineteen sixties police telephone box." the Doctor said excitedly.

"Nineteen _sixties_?" Thomas gasped.

"Oh yes, did I mention the part about being a _time-travelling_ alien?"

The Doctor advanced toward the box, but was pulled back by Thomas' excited words.

"So this box, it's from the future?"

"Oh well, yes, I suppose, in a manner of speaking. It's from all over the place. It's my spaceship, you see."

"Space... ship." Thomas articulated bewilderedly.

"I suppose, in a sense, I'm an ambassador to the stars."

Thomas hardly processed the Doctor's words. "Space. Ship."

"If you think the outside's amazing," the Doctor laughed, "Wait 'til you see what I keep inside." With a snap of his thin fingers, the door to the box sprang open, and the Doctor stepped inside.

For a moment Thomas stood in the night, his face illuminated from the dim light from the top of the box and that of the stars, but then, in small, hesitating steps, he walked up to the box and pushed the door open.

And then promptly slammed it in his own face, as his brain and eyes rejecting what he saw. He opened it a crack, looked again, and shut it again. Breathing heavily, he circled the tiny box, and then opened the door again, and finally, mustering up his courage, pushed open both of the doors and stepped into the box.

Inside, it was truly amazing. It was a flood of light, orange and pleasant. It was a round room, centered around some sort of switchboard on a raised platform with a glass column in the center. The Doctor was standing by the central board, a wide smile still on his face, his hair flopping messily over his forehead. He had pushed up his jacket sleeves, and suddenly he pulled a little lever on the switchboard. With a whirring, fascinating noise which was entirely unique and that Thomas could not describe, the whole room suddenly moved. Thomas scrambled back to the doorway and looked out. The whole box was floating several feet off the top of the roof.

"It's _flying_!" Thomas shouted incredulously, and he felt like a boy again, the first time he had seen a hot air balloon.

"That's not all she can do! Come on TARDIS, old girl, let's show him some magic!" The Doctor threw another lever, and the whole room gave another terrific lurch.

Thomas clutched to the edge of the doorframe and unblinkingly watched as the roof retreated further below him. The TARDIS swung around, and Thomas had a full view of the glowing Downton Abbey, his home for so many years, lit up in the night from its many eyelike windows. The flying box glided leisurely along the trees, and across the facade of the house, past all those bright windows, and Thomas caught sight of Ms. O'Brien. She was staring at him, through the window. She was standing in Lady Grantham's bedroom, her arms full of dirty washing, staring at him with eyes wide as saucers and face puce. Thomas began laughing, laughing so hard he feared he might cry, as the TARDIS began to fly away from the building he let go of the doorframe with one hand to wave furiously with the other at the quickly diminishing form of Ms. O'Brien. He waved and waved and he knew behind him the Doctor had also been waving, and laughing. All the while he was smiling that crazy, pure, rapt smile which was somehow still impossibly glued to his face. And as he watched the disappearing silhouette of Downton Abbey sink into the trees, he saw not the darkness of his past, but the bright possibility of a new chance, a new light, a new future; and under the winking brightness of the stars, forgiveness seemed a beautiful and natural step into a truly magical, bigger-on-the-inside phone box. So he kept waving, waving until his hand was numb, and staring down at the lights below, and smiling.


End file.
